Software, rehabilitation help composer keep working despite partial paralysis
Feet moving at a glacial pace, Scot Rammer shuffles from the front door to his recording studio: a desk in his living room.
There is no hurry. But even if there were, he couldn’t. Rammer’s right side is partially paralyzed, the aftereffects of a stroke he suffered in 2008.
He was 49.
Rammer, a musician and composer for more than 30 years, pulls out a piano keyboard and opens a music program on the computer. Everything he needs to make music — soundboard, piano, software, microphone — is at this desk.
He pushes a button and colors dance on the computer’s screen, timed to the beat that pulses from giant speakers. The song is an orchestral swell laced with a heartbeat; it swallows the room. For several minutes, no one moves.
“This,” Rammer says, “is how I felt in a coma.”
• • •
It was a beautifully normal day, Dec. 6, 2008.
Scot Rammer, a single father with sole custody of his children, planned to take his daughters Christmas shopping. The girls were dressed and fed, so Rammer went to his closet to change clothes.
Suddenly, he felt a tingle shoot up his left leg.
“I was never afraid,” recalls Rammer, now 54. “I thought that the sensation was rather odd and sort of interesting.”
He continued dressing because two excited little girls were looking forward to hanging out with their dad. Then the tingle traveled up Rammer’s right leg. Unable to stand, Rammer fell. Calmly, he called out to his children, had them bring the home phone to him and then go to the neighbor’s apartment.
By the time the paramedics arrived, Rammer was incoherent. Instead of his own name, he gave them the name of his father, who had died a few months earlier.
“I was starting to go on my way out,” Rammer says. “After that, there was very little I recall.”
At least a month before his stroke, Rammer had battled the kind of headaches that make you wish you didn’t have a head.
He chewed Tylenol like candy. He also smoked cigarettes and drank liquor, all things a man shouldn’t do when he has a blood-clotting disorder and high blood pressure. On the day he fell down in his bedroom closet, his blood pressure measured 240/160. Normal blood pressure is 120/80. Of course, Rammer didn’t know he was in such bad shape. He didn’t know he was a prime candidate for a stroke. He learned that much later, when he was recovering from a stroke.
• • •
As a young boy, Scot Rammer was allergic to the desert trees and grass.
The allergies induced asthma attacks, so Rammer played mostly indoors. When he was 6, his mother gave him an accordion to occupy his time and mind. It was an inexpensive piano, in a way, and made him want to try the real thing. At 12, Rammer switched to playing piano.
By the time he graduated from Valley High School, he was working enough that he didn’t need to think about college. At some point since the 1970s, he has played piano, conducted or arranged music for Lola Falana; Paul Williams; James Darrin; Little Anthony and the Imperials; and the Smothers Brothers, to name a few.
Longtime locals who watch television have heard Rammer’s music. He is responsible for several well-known local commercial jingles, including for Terrible’s hotel-casino and Golden Nugget. He has also composed music for local shows, such as the Rio’s “Show in the Sky” and Excalibur’s “Tournament of Kings.”
In 2008, Rammer was at the top of his musical career. That is, until he was fighting for his life. And then, when it seemed that he would live after a month in a medically induced coma, three months in the hospital and six months in a rehabilitation center, Rammer didn’t think he would have a musical career at all.
• • •
This is how you fix a broken musician: You give him computers, an iPad, music software, recording equipment and a workspace that will accommodate a man whose dominant arm is paralyzed.
And you teach him how to play with one hand.
“We have had musicians over the years,” says Janice John, deputy administrator for the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. “Sometimes, we have had to help them figure out new ways to carry their instruments or gear. I can remember buying a musician a portable cart so he wouldn’t have to lift things. This is the first time we’ve done something like this.”
The rehabilitation division of the state agency helps people with disabilities, either congenital or acquired, return to work. For instance, they might provide the necessary skills and equipment to teach a permanently disabled construction worker how to work in a different field. The key is that the disability must create a barrier to employment, John says.
The agency provides eligible people with uniforms, tools, hearing aids, even prosthetic limbs, so that they can work.
In Rammer’s case, the rehabilitation staff had to figure out what he needed to play and compose music again. They fitted his apartment with Apple computers and music software. They designed the ideal in-home studio for a man whose right side is permanently paralyzed.
“Music is his passion and he certainly wanted to continue,” John says of Rammer.
That he was so motivated played a major role in Rammer’s success. And the rehabilitation agency considers him a success. He may not be able to work at the speed he did before the stroke, but Rammer is composing. Recently, he did a new piece for “Tournament of Kings.”
“We didn’t know if he would be able to work again,” says Phil Shelburne, director of “Tournament of Kings.”
Shelburne met Rammer 12 years ago when he was hired to compose new music for the show. Since then, he has used Rammer for several projects.
“Scot is just one of those rare creative geniuses,” Shelburne says. “The music is the emotional content of any part of a show. He’s great at evoking emotion.”
Friends worried how a debilitating stroke would affect Rammer’s music. Luckily, Shelburne says, he’s as funny, personable and talented as ever.
“He’s not a quitter, he’s a fighter,” says friend and fellow musician Charles Hayes.
A saxophone player, Hayes met Rammer about 20 years ago on a gig. The men have been good friends ever since.
“I seriously got my bell rung but I was lucky,” Rammer says. “All these things take adjusting to. But I’m not in a hurry. You just figure out what you can do and do it.”
• • •
When Rammer had his stroke, he expected to die.
He had what he calls a near-death experience.
“I was ready to go,” he says. “I heard thousands of voices. I was feeling drawn toward them. The peace, forgiveness and love was so calming.”
He thought he saw Jesus Christ. Just as he had given up, Rammer says he heard a booming voice ask, “Have you forgotten your children?”
Suddenly, he felt as though he were being sucked backward into a vacuum. When he woke up, a month had passed. Doctors had kept him in a coma while they worked to bring his blood pressure under control. His daughters, Adora, now 11, and Nalani, now 8, were living with relatives, their lives also in limbo, waiting to know what would happen to their father. His daughters are his life’s inspiration.
He’s writing a book and composing music about his experience. The first song is titled “Coma.” It’s a musical interpretation of what he remembers from 30 days in a coma.
Rammer hopes his story will inspire others, especially those who have suffered life-changing strokes.
“It’s so disheartening to see the people who go through a stroke get so overwhelmed that they can’t go on. A lot of people don’t have anything to live for,” Rammer says. “I used to live for me. I don’t live for me anymore. I live for others. I live for my kids, my family and for those I might inspire through my music.”
Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at
spadgett@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564.
Follow @StripSonya on Twitter.
